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99 Problems But Mitt Ain't One: Jay-Z stumps for Obama in Ohio.

Mitt Romney hasn’t gotten much love from the music world over the course of his campaign. Just today, Jay-Z introduced Barack Obama at a campaign event in Columbus, Ohio. Beforehand, the rapper performed his hit “99 Problems," modifying the chorus to end with the words “but Mitt ain’t one.”

Jay-Z’s got plenty of company in Obama's corner. Fellow rappers ranging from Young Jeezy to Common have voiced their support for the president, as have rockers like Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen--who also joined the president in Ohio--and country artists including Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw. There’s even an organization called DJs for Obama, which includes names like Steve Aoki and DJ Cassidy.

“Many of them believe he understands them,” says Marlon Hill, a Miami entertainment attorney who helped organize DJs for Obama. “He has a very intimate understanding of their life’s pursuit of prosperity and opportunity in America and the struggles you may go through as a small business owner, and as a young person who’s just come out of school, looking to contribute to society. He’s lived that.”

So why haven’t more of these popular music purveyors sung the praises of the former governor of Massachusetts? A quick survey of music business insiders reveals a range of reasons as broad as the industry itself. Here are a few.

The simplest reason, perhaps, is that Obama’s policies seem to align more closely with most musicians’ values than Romney’s. Randy Phillips, chief of concert promoter AEG, strongly supports that notion.

“Most artists believe that government has a role in promoting and enabling society’s greater good and have worked their asses off to join the 1%,” he says.

Phillips cites Obama’ support of funding for the arts (“including Big Bird and PBS”), progressive income tax rates (“so that the wealthy pay their fair share”), women’s reproductive rights (“healthcare choices that are not being dictated to them by a bunch of white middle-aged men and religious zealots”), environmental protection (“silencing the ignorant cackle of noise from the global warming deniers”), gay rights and “a sane foreign policy that does not pit American values against the rest of the world.”

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, might seem inaccessible to many musicians because of his high level of earnings. The Republican candidate pulled in $20.9 million in adjusted gross income (more than any rapper other than Dr. Dre, Diddy, Jay-Z, Kanye West or Lil Wayne, and more than any DJ besides this year’s Electronic Cash King, Tiesto). Obama, by contrast, only earned $789,674.

Still, jealousy seems an unlikely basis for voting decisions. Plenty of stars, like Aoki and Cassidy, earned less than Romney and still support Obama.

It’s possible there are more musicians who support Romney and just don’t want to admit it. Michael Levine, who runs a publicity firm in Los Angeles and has represented 34 Grammy Award winners over the years, gives credence to that theory.